Illinois & In Betweens

We're home. In Ohio.

Earlier today, we were still in Illinois. It was a much warmer day than yesterday, which made for a perfect time relaxing outside for a bit before we climbed back in the car for the 5-hour homeward trek.

sweet. bitter. bittersweet.
illinois to ohio, ohio to illinois...

After breakfast, we dropped by Rob's dad's house. They've made some major headway in some home renovation projects they're doing, including the outline for a pool. We spent a couple hours there visiting and chatting with them.

Most of that time was spent with a happy Travis parked on my lap. Sure, he's all of 75 pounds, but hey, who's counting? 


travis!

sunshine & a happy pup!

 Then of course there was Toby:

he didn't want in the chair ;)

And when Travis finally decided he wanted some shade, too..  

happy boys

The "see you soon"'s came before we wanted them to, but we managed through it, and headed onward to say the same to Rob's mom. We spent a little time there of course, too, admiring the blossoms and checking out her screen room projects. She's got some monster blooms in her yard, and gave us a few little ones to take back to Sydni.

beautiful blossoms!

She recently did a furniture upgrade on her patio and now has some chairs that I decided today were exactly what we need for our dining room table. We looked at several chairs of the same structural style, but of course either upholstered, leather or just plain frame with seat cushions. Nothing so far has seemed to really sway me, until I saw these. Our table's a finicky thing to try and match, but I know that these will work just fine.

dark wicker highbacks.
#want.

I'll keep you posted on when we acquire some of these for our dining room ;)

Speaking of our dining room, fast forward through the road trip itself to the fact that we're back in it now, laughing at the note Mike & Becky left for us on the back of a small shipping envelope they'd found somewhere in the house:

hahaha

If you can't read it, it says:

BECKY KILLED YOUR SCREEN DOOR HANDLE (SHE'S BLAMING THE DOGS.. BUT THAT'S JUST TOO COMPLICATED. & I JUST FOUND OUT, TOO LATE TO FIX... HMMM). HOPE IT WAS A GOOD TRIP. - MIKE

Hahaha. I thought about rubbing this in Becky's face out of good fun, but since the latch on the back screen door has been jamming for the past few weeks, I decided I'd just wait and give her grief about something else ;)

 

Plus, I decided at the last minute to do lunches for us for tomorrow. Here's to healthy living, both at home and at work!

hers & his ♥

Phew. What a day. I'm outta here.

See ya, tomorrow!

 

xo | cmd

Birthday Bashes

I just realized that in the course of the last couple month or so, we've done more traveling to Illinois to celebrate our friends' birthdays than staying in Cincinnati. That includes my friends, too. Haha. Really, it's because most of my Ohio friends have their day o' birth anniversaries on either side of the Illinois group.

First we came out for Ali's birthday. This time, it was both Mike and Dillon's birthdays [separately] that we are celebrating.

The day started off with a background romp with Zepplin, Jesse's dog. He's too cute [the dog, that is. Sorry, Jesse.. haha]

"come outside and play with me!"

Ok, ok.. we will (:


action shot

30 minutes later... 

a far less zealous zepplin... action shot ;)

= Happy Dog!

too cute!

Rob, Jesse and I met with Rob's mom & Don for breakfast before relaxing for the better part of the afternoon. The evening crept in before we knew it, so we trekked over a couple blocks to Mike & Kelly's house for Mike's 30th birthday celebration.

not a bad way to start!

It didn't take long for the small crowd to assemble, and we made an evening out of the bonfire and great company.

from mini crackles to roaring warmth (:

Oh, and folks - this is the difference between men and women when it comes to photography at a casual social gathering.. haha

Women:

hi, ladies!

... And men. In every single picture:

so close, guys. this was the best one.
[happy birthday, mike!]

Haha. All photogenic abilities [or inabilities, whichever you prefer] aside, it was an awesome little shindig and I'm happy that Rob is able to come back to his hometown and see his friends.

After Mike's, it was out to the Marina to see Dillon and that bunch, at the tail end of Dillon's birthday night out.

happy birthday, dillon!

It's been a long night, but an awesome one and I'm glad we were able to make it in town this weekend. Tomorrow we'll likely be visiting Rob's dad before we head back to Ohio, so with the trip ahead of us, I'm callin' this one a wrap.

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

And Here We Go A-Road Tripping...

Well, we got a later start than we would have liked, but it wasn't all wasted.

There's nothing quite like a sunset-on-the-run:

.. accompanied by windshield bug splatter.. lovely.. :/

We demonstrated how gullibly sold we are on the marketing ploys of rest-stop goodies:

.. & lottery tickets. because... uncle si, that's why.

^ In the defense of all things Brach's, they're actually pretty good.

Oh, and even though we rolled into Granite in the dark and endured a very young crowd at Bindy's, we weren't disappointed by the green beans. We never really are - at least I know I'm not.

+ bill in the background... + blue moon in the foreground..

So yeah. We're here, safe and sound... and tired.
G'Nite.

xo | cmd

Sidenote: Whispering Beard Festival!

We obliged an invite from Mike & Becky this evening after work to join them for dinner at Eli's. Why? Because you just don't decline invites to Eli's, and also because I love those two and was pretty excited to find time in the week to hang out. Solid reasons, yeah?

all the yesses.

AND live music?

double yes.

Grateful Grahams was onsite as well, which meant s'more making.. and that's really just the perfect addition to live music, Eli's and friends.

nom nom!

To top it all off, we scored some can coozies [koozies for those of you who argue over the spelling; I really couldn't care less... ] for the quickly-approaching Whispering Beard Festival in August. I would really like to go, but we'll play that one by ear and see if it blends all right with our schedule.

looks. like. fun!!

Anyway, it was another successful night with music, food, more food, local brew and of course, this guy:

love you to the moon & back, weirdo ♥

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

So Domesticated.. And Schtuff...

Yep. Crockpot chicken.

It's like I'm an adult now! Well, that, or a bonified Pinterest addict.

yummmm!

You're welcome, family (:

xo | cmd

Go Home, Train...

And here I thought trains only came out during the day in Illinois? Hah.

Well, apparently this was the headline that we didn't see until after the fact of today:

oh boy...

We didn't realize the root cause until several hours after we left our office. We made the decision to call it a day after we sat around like this for nearly an hour:

express yourself... in the dark

Here's hoping for the businesses [especially restaurants] in Norwood and Rookwood, that the power will be back in action by tomorrow!

xo | cmd

Coffee & Flatizzas

Allow me to illustrate for you how today was a major cheat day on the good ol' diet:
1.

this is a true story, today.

2.


subway flatizza.. yeah... that's a thing..

Yeah. Let's let this Monday go to rest and start over on Tuesday.
*Yawn.

xo | cmd